Take a moment to imagine the scene. You are standing on the goal line and you have the privilege of being the goalkeeper of your nation – in a major …
Overconfidence – Explaining it Away
(Image via Stowe Boyd from Flickr) “The human mind is an overconfidence machine.” David Brooks, The Social Animal Overconfidence is dangerous. How many ill-judged wars, invasions, crashes, economic downturns …
Thinking Hard…and Why We Avoid It
In his excellent 2013 paper, called ‘Improving Education: A Triumph of Hope Over Experience’, Professor Rob Coe defines the secret of learning: “Learning happens when people have to think hard.” …
The ‘Halo Effect’ and Teacher Assessment
What if we are not the accurate judges that we think ourselves to be? What if our natural biases get the better of us, even when we don’t expect them …
Moses and our Lazy Brain
A quick question: “How many animals of each kind did Moses bring onto the Ark?” Did you get it right? Two. Of course. Er, not quite. If you didn’t notice …
Maximising Learning about the Growing Brain
My abiding memory of GCSE Biology is what seemed like a succession of David Attenborough films and graffiti daubed textbooks. I recall only an ugly collage of rat dissections and …